High-risk activities in adolescence—unprotected sex, substance abuse, violence, and other forms of risky behavior—remain a pervasive and costly problem in Western societies, despite extensive efforts to prevent or reduce these activities through intervention programs.

An evolutionary perspective provides a fresh alternative to the mental health model. In particular, risky behaviors might reflect adaptations to harsh environments rather than deviations from optimal development.

The dominant scientific paradigm for explaining these high-risk behaviors can be termed the mental health model, which assumes (implicitly if not explicitly) that harsh social environments adversely affect children’s wellbeing, promoting disturbances in development, even if not clinical disorders per se. This model emphasizes the costs and largely ignores the benefits of risk-taking, making it difficult to explain the motives for risky behavior in adolescents.

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